


Through All Things

by eye_of_a_cat



Category: Babylon 5
Genre: Alien Culture, Gen, Minbari
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-29
Updated: 2018-05-29
Packaged: 2019-05-15 17:58:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 996
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14795240
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eye_of_a_cat/pseuds/eye_of_a_cat
Summary: Reasons for choosing an aide





	Through All Things

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on LiveJournal in 2004

Deshan pulled his hood further around his face against the driving rain, and cursed the mountain weather as he peered out into the storm. Summer always came late to Chu’Domo, but this year it had yet to show itself at all, and this was not a good beginning for a meeting with someone as important as a caste leader. The flyer outside sprayed up water as it shuddered to a halt, and its pilot had to sprint to the gates of the compound, but when Deshan greeted him he was laughing. “I haven’t seen rain like this for twenty years!”  
  
“The weather is kinder back in Yedor.” Deshan handed their cloaks to an acolyte, and gestured for his superior to follow him into a meeting-room where a flask of hot tea was waiting for them. “We thank you again for choosing Chu’Domo for this honour, Katell,” he said.  
  
Katell accepted a glass of tea, and began to look through the sheaf of papers on the table, nodding in a distracted way. “These are the ten you told us about?”  
  
“In order of suitability.” Deshan took a seat opposite him, cupping his cold hands around his own glass. “Although the final decision is yours, of course.”  
  
Katell nodded. “Any of these would be an excellent candidate. Satai Delenn was very specific in her request, if a little… unconventional.”  
  
Outside, rain spattered harder against the windows as the storm began to increase in intensity. “Yes,” Deshan said. “We found it surprising that she would want an assistant so new to their calling.”  
  
“Satai Delenn was no more than an acolyte herself when Dukhat chose her as his aide.” Katell replaced his glass on the table with a decisive click, and their eyes held for a long moment.  
  
Deshan pulled a paper out of the stack. “This one, maybe? As requested she has little diplomatic experience, but what she does have was gained on Centauri Prime.”  
  
“Perhaps, perhaps…” Katell cast his eyes briefly over the file held out to him. “But Delenn wants a student as well as an assistant, and this one would first need to unlearn whatever versions of diplomacy the Centauri had shown her.” He placed one of his own papers on the table between them. “This priest was at the back of the pile?”  
  
“His education is excellent, but he has very little experience of anything outside the temple,” Deshan explained.  
  
“But that is as she wishes, is it not? And his education is more than excellent. Although, it is strange that he would request and complete diplomatic training.”  
  
“We tried to discourage him, but he insisted, despite our advice. I felt that such a personality might not be suitable for a position as sensitive as this.”  
  
Some time passed before Katell replied. “Satai Delenn has followed an unexpected course, refusing the leadership of our people to work with the humans instead. Evidently she wishes us to send her someone who will echo her thoughts and follow in her footsteps. I do not doubt her heart or her wisdom, but… although she may think otherwise, I believe it would be better to give her an aide determined enough to keep to his own path rather than hers, despite youth or inexperience.”  
  
Slowly, Deshan began to smile.  
  
**~*~**  
  
The sun was beating down on the back of his neck, and the constant noise of the city buffeted him from all sides. The colours were brighter here, on street signs or the shuttles whose paths criss-crossed overhead; the buildings were taller, crowding around them in place of the mountains Lennier had grown up with. And everywhere, everywhere, there were people; religious, warrior, worker, alien, a laughing parent picking up a child that would walk no further, two young warrior caste trainees arguing in the middle of the street, a group of stonemasons completing repairs on the steps of a bridge.  
  
He stopped to return the bow of a wide-eyed acolyte who recognised Katell, collided with a box-carrying merchant walking in the other direction, turned to apologise, and found himself blocking the path of a crowd of Centauri tourists. Katell pulled him out of the way with a hand on his upper arm, half-exaggerated and half-amused, and suggested they stop for a moment.  
  
From the shade of an ancient temple, Yedor seemed calmer. Katell waited long enough for Lennier to collect his thoughts before saying, “You have questions?”  
  
A hundred questions, a thousand questions, and no time to ask more than the two most important. “I am grateful to be given such an opportunity,” he said. “But I had not even left Temple, and I do not understand…” His voice trailed off in the weight of Katell’s expression that was not quite a smile. “Understanding is not required,” he muttered beneath bowed head.  
  
“It is not,” Katell said, and Lennier did not ask the other question. _Why Chu’Domo? Out of all the clans, why send her an aide from one that has served with honour only for a few hundred years, and with considerably less honour before then? Why Chu’Domo, hot-headed and impulsive Chu’Domo, hidden away in its mountains, fiercely independent even from its own caste when it chooses to be? Why Chu’Domo, when Chu’Domo has always been so close to the warriors in spirit as well as distance, refusing to renounce the clan membership of any who convert to the warrior caste, and training even its acolytes to fight? Why Chu’Domo?_  
  
Instead, he said “Without understanding, how will I know what is required for obedience?”  
  
Katell laughed, and clapped him on the back. “That will become clear in time,” he said. “Now, your transport awaits, I think.”  
  
It did, and Katell did not speak as they passed through the departing crowds, or as tickets were checked and cards scanned. Only as Lennier joined the line of passengers did he add, casually, “One thing, Lennier?”  
  
“Yes?”  
  
“Do _not_ look up.” He bowed in farewell, and then he was gone.  
  


**~*~**

**Author's Note:**

> The apparent contradictions in how Minbari society is arranged between s2's There All The Honor Lies and, well, pretty much every other episode, always bothered me.


End file.
